I am at Nine Worlds London this weekend!

So I am! Nine Worlds convention, London, 12-14th August! Behold my schedule. Ignore the panel on Sunday which has strangely been included but which I’m not on. It’s probably not too late to buy tickets! Hurrah!

In other news, am 200K words into my new book, probably another 100K to go. It’s big! Epic fantasy is epic, it turns out. Will let you know when I have a title and when I can reveal more. Current release date is probably end of next year, but nothing fixed yet.

I should put this on the front page one day, but if you want up to date news (such as it is) it’s best to follow me on Twitter @_ChrisWooding_ (note the crafty underscores). And if you want all the secret news I’m not supposed to talk about then find me at the con and buy me a drink.

114 Comments

To be honest, I didn’t get to hear it. My mom did on the news. Apparently it was said. I might look it up later. But anyways, I guess a lot of what happened is to be expected. I just don’t like the Trump supporters who keep telling people to shut up and stop worrying.

I think Mike Pence is the real reason I’m scared. I live in Indiana. I know what he’s capable of. He is the same guy that opened therapy for young homosexual teens that ended up using shock therapy to turn them straight. That ain’t cool. I don’t know though. It might end up being a decent 4 years. I agree that his pancake demeanor is frightening….I miss Bernie

Oh gosh you had to live in Indiana during the era of Pence? You poor thing. That man is a monster. People keep saying that they hope someone assassinates Trump but he’s practically Moses compared to Pence (Ted Cruz on mega-steroids).

They’re both anti-environmental, which really scares me. Between rising sea levels and pollution, I’m really shocked that politicians think that they can choose to believe in man-made climate change like it’s a religion. The last thing we need to do is endanger the environment by letting people and businesses run amok.

Also, Trump used to be a democrat. He ran as a republican. He purposefully campaigned in states to win electoral votes and take them from Clinton (as we can see from the popular vote and electoral vote). He even ran at the time America was due to go Republican. For all we know, his alleged views and his behavior could (mostly) have been an act meant to gain as many votes as possible by targeting the “underrepresented” hardcore rightists. We have no idea what he’s going to do.

Its scary to look at posts of people already feeling the sting. So many people using racial slurs and saying the cruelest things. Its insane out there. I really hope Trump can calm people down. Cause Captain America isn’t going to be the only one facing a civil war if this continues.

Trump supporters, the ones that have been loyal since the beginning, scare me more than Trump. They’re horrible, intolerant jerks who think they’ve been disenfranchised because we’ve started fighting for equality in this country. To me, Trump isn’t likely to attempt to deport everybody who isn’t white. He’s just Republican (sort of racist, anti-immigration, deport illegals living off the tax dollar, etc.). But from what the media makes it out to be and what his supporters have been saying, it looks like he wants to make america white again. But for all we know, he’s been targeting that audience because he needed their vote to win.

But for the time being, it doesn’t matter who we voted for and if we voted at all. Republican and Democrat loyalists alike, those of us who are anti-racism and anti-homophobia need to do what we can to provide safety for the victims of these idiots.

Oh yeah, and have you heard that thing about how Hillary could still get in office? There are literally petitions to give electors money to pay fines if they vote against the state’s elected party and vote for Hillary. The intentions are good, but does anyone realize that if we actually do that, and go against the electoral college voting system (which is garbage but it’s what we use), this could be the first step to a civil war or at least America’s downfall? It’d be anarchy if the voting system broke down because it would mean that people have even less of a say in the government roles than they already do. People are already rioting against Trump, and we’ve seen how Trump supporters react to victory and I’m pretty sure they’d be much scarier if they lost. The whole scenario would be disastrous.

That is true. I don’t think it would help the situation any. Both sides are doing crazy things, and all the celebs keep telling us to come together. Not exactly going working. I just hope this can just die down. But it’ll probably rise up again when he gets inaugurated. Lets see how this turns out.

In the meantime I’ll be cursing those idiots who put in that “no third term amendment”.

I think their logic was “the people keep electing him. This will cause a dictatorship.”

Guys, we wouldn’t get to keep electing him if he had turned it into a dictatorship.

Also, I’m looking at viable candidates for 2020. Michelle Obama and Tammy Duckworth need to run. But not at the same time. Maybe having them back to back for the next 4-16 years wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

Ive seen some people mention that, and that sounds brilliant. I feel like having either one running for President would be the best thing for the people. Thing is, Im skeptical with any politician. They just feel fake to me.

They’re all lying, scheming, and superficial. It’s part of creating their image in order to manipulate the public. The key to figuring out who you support is by figuring out what they have consistently promoted and disagreed with. I like Tammy Duckworth because she’s socially liberal and seems to be more interested in making the government financially EFFICIENT (thank god someone wants to) and redistributing the money saved to a variety of programs while also paying off debt rather than trying to solve problems by increasing taxes.

No idea how she’d fair in foreign policy though, which is typically something I’d like to know about someone before I start looking at putting them in power.

Its always the people that can’t run for president that the people want. Like deez nuts. 17 year old kid I think earlier in the year. The peoples champion. But yea, its insane to see the perfect candidate and then they either can’t run or don’t win the primary.

One of my teachers was talking about why we need it, and she was saying it was because only the votes in Ohio, New York, Texas, Florida, and California would matter and it wouldn’t matter how the rest of the country voted but I don’t understand this because it’s not like the entire population is going to vote one way, Texas always votes republican, California always votes democrat, New York always votes democrat, and the other two are swing states so I’m pretty sure that argument is dead, and it’s also kind of why we need to get rid of the electoral college. The republican vote in California doesn’t count at all.

Yeah. It’s a pretty bad system when you think about it. I mean, it makes sense why it is used, but then again, it doesn’t. There are a lot of people who don’t really get a voice. It’s why a lot of people tend to just not vote. I’m sure it would probably be the same if the Electoral College didn’t exist, but possibly less than now. More might show up to try and make a difference. I always felt though that having large groups not vote would speak more loudly. But then again, I guess it wouldn’t really work like that.

The reason why we haven’t gotten rid of the electoral college already (as explained by my history teacher), is because it is in the constitution, so to get rid of it you need at least 75% of the states to vote against it. Since all of the smallest states that have less people want to matter, and have people campaign to them, they want to keep it.

Ok, so about those small states that are worth a fair amount of points. They’re urban areas with LOTS of people, hence the reason those states are worth so much. Candidates would still heavily campaign in those states in order to gain votes. Secondly, states that do not receive much attention will also gain opportunity to listen to candidates, because the candidates will campaign in metropolitan areas (where most of the people/votes are at) to gain votes, and even Wyoming has a few of those.

I really don’t like the setup here. These are not nice people who will be leading our country, and basically anyone who isn’t a white male could potentially be affected. Woman and LGBT rights will probably be neglected or will at least be the least affected, but Muslims, Hispanics, Jews, and other not-white people could be profoundly affected if these guys actually start being “productive”.

I never would’ve realized that draining the swamp would be solved by adding to said swamp. One of Trumps policies was draining the swamp and kicking out the lobbyists. Doesn’t seem to be that way at all. Guess we just have to wait and see what happens.

You know that feeling where you’re brain is neck-deep into a brand new idea but you’ve got a bunch of work in your future so it’s going to be a miserably slow process? That is me… I don’t want to go back to school! SCHOOL SUCKS!!!

I feel ya. I really didn’t like high school as much as everyone else. It was boring and only a few of my teachers taught me life lessons. Probably why I took this year to write instead of jumping into college.

I’m about to go to college and I can’t wait to go. High school was kind of interesting for me up until this year. Freshman year, I was at a terrible rich kid school with a bunch of assholes who would brag about the price of their jeans (we had a legit hierarchy. Whoever had the most expensive jeans with the most bling was the most popular. On the other hand, scum like me weren’t allowed to wear jeans with bling because the stuff from Khols was “poser”). I was so low on the food chain I couldn’t even eat in the cafeteria (we had a Mean Girls on steroids lunch territory system too), and I was on my way to becoming a cliche super villain. Then I moved across the country. Lo and behold, I enter this school that had three kinds of people: surfer bums (15%), gangstas (35%), and Weeaboos on the most extreme levels. I made friends with a slightly psychotic loner kid whom I had many exciting adventures with and was dragged into anime hell by the drama kids. On top of that, one of the teachers was arrested for Walter Whiting in her chemistry class, a gang war unfolded at school and in my neighborhood, a gator ate a local teenager, and I sent glitter flying all over the boys dressing room which caused Dick Tracy to enter the stage with stardust shoulder pads. The next year, I moved AGAIN to another state. There, I met my best friends and somehow wound up in classes with mostly seniors. And the seniors were amazing. Life hadn’t quite gotten to them yet. They were ambitious, hilarious, genuine, and also pretty nerdy. I had my first date, accidentally infiltrated the popular kids, and discovered an interest in law with the help of my government teacher. It was a pretty good year. This year was supposed to be the grand finale. But the problem is that most of my friends are in college and everyone in my grade has lost all semblance of expression to stress and anxiety. The best parts of the day when this kid (who I wouldn’t be surprised if he reveals his true form as Loki) decides to debate the teacher or drive class discussion into the deep end simply because its something different. It’s boring and I want out, but it’s such a long wait that I can barely stand it.

Wow. Sounds like you’ve had a pretty fun time in high school. For me, it was kind of boring. A few days in the month would be pretty cool. I’ve only been to one high school, so making friends was sort of easy. I would be friends with the more popular kids, but I was also friends with the weirdos too. Some exciting stuff happened though. Like the occasional fight or dramatic yelling match, or even letters sent home about people bringing guns to school. Senior pranks happened, and some were in poor taste. The football team won the state championship. That was pretty lit as they say. Um…other than that, my life was just normal. Had a close friend that I ended up having to give up on because we were friends for the wrong reasons. I actually gained more friends than I thought I would. Prom was nice too. Though I went stag, twice. I think the best thing about high school for me was hanging with friends and listening to some of my favorite teachers actually teach us some life lessons or just make lectures exciting.

The best thing about high school is the sheer amount of crazy you can find in your day. No matter how miserable you may be, you can probably turn your evil art teacher into a book character, or fondly remember the time your class staged a mock wedding for your government teacher, or enjoy the fact that the most redneck kid in your class has a deep fear of cockroaches, or laugh at the JOHN CENA video that pops up whenever you click “new tab” on computer 2 in room 503 (also see; Shrek in a thong, Thomas the Dank Engine, and the Shia-laButton).

Hmm…I suppose he was rough. Not rough, but he expected things from his student. He hated late work. He wanted us to know that jobs in the future wouldn’t allow important presentations or other things to be late. He taught me that there was more to life than just being the normal. Even though he wanted us to be the best, he understood our strengths and weaknesses and helped us improve. He talked to us about life, and about being special and not letting people walk over us.

I’ve got one of those right now. We talk a lot about individuality and self-perception in class. It makes me and my insecurities very uncomfortable because those are things that tend to give me headaches.